These guys were a Pretty awesome, obscure and overlooked thrash metal band from Germany. The back cover was totally corny looking, and you almost wouldn't be able to tell how awesome they were based on some bad mustache's, and the spandex outfits. Dudes almost look like the little bros of the Scorps. None the less this shit is fast, and raw thrash. I was obsessing over German thrash metal, and hardcore during the late 80's. No idea why (well, it prolly had something to do with Destruction, and Sodom).
This is one of the first records I ever bought at Erl records when I moved back to Albany from S.F. How could I go wrong, it was $3.99. Dave the owner back then, would allow you to drink in the store, smoke in the store, etc. It was a great place to gather together with buddies, talk about music, and drink some Jagermiester. He didn't really dig metal, so anything he got in used, was cheap! This store was one of my all time favs.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Lets face it, there was a band named Sacrifice in every shit town back in the day. In the 1980's very little was known about the Japanese metal scene to so many of us here in America. To most of us the extent of what we had heard via metal from the great country was that of Loudness(a melodic power metal band who gained some success in America in the 1980s). Sacrifice were the exact opposite of that, they played a brutal and hellish brand of Venom styled metal that was raw, chunky, and evil sounding. If I'd heard this in 1986, I'd have been floored, and probably dwelved harder into searching for some heavier metal from Japan back then. Unfortunately I did not hear this until around 1989 or 1990. Again my buddy Louis (luke)turned me on to this 11 min demo tape. He'd blast this back to back with the likes of Gism, Gauze, and SOB. The band later released the "crest of black" LP. Many loved it, but to so many of us the rawness of the demo is what helped to make the band so mind blowing. The crude drawing, graphics and artwork were magically diy.
Recently I found a 7" ep boot of this classic demo. Its supposedly limited to 100 copies. Enjoy.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

I'm Just back from my honeymoon, and wedding & figured things were slow on here for long enough...
This is a random tape compilation that was hand made and traded with/ for famed photographer Glen Friedman by the mighty punk artist, and Septic Death vocalist Pushead back in 1982.
These were the days when finding fast aggressive hardcore could be a chore. It took becoming pen pals with people world wide, , scowering every zine that one came in contact with for info. Of course trading tapes was an essential, and a great way to stay on top of, and finding newer stuff. I would read everything from early Flipside, to Ripper, Suburban voice, metal maniacs, mrr, hardtimes, etc in hopes to discover a new band, or come in contact with someone from another country or state. I'm not sure how this actual tape started making the rounds, but it's cool that it did. Listening to this, one can see/remember how amazing and pissed off the hardcore scene was in its early days. This was real. It was about being picked on by jocks, rednecks, and the rest of society. It was about being looked down on for what we looked like, it was about Ron Reagan and the cold war. If you were a punk/metalhead in these early days, you might not find work, if you did, you were prolly a dishwasher. Punk hardcore was about so much that attracted me to these early days of being a misfit in society. This tape compiles everything from some of the more popular of the punk bands of the time, to some obscure gems as well. Enjoy, and as always please comment.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Confrontation were a Southern California grind/crust band from the late 80's who broke up in the early 1990's. The band featured Todd, The bass player that went on to play in the cult band Dystopia. This stuff is pretty brutal, and more on the crust side of hardcore & metal. Metalheads will love this shit... Its raw as fuck. This record is the actual bands first demo from 1989, remixed then put to vinyl. The ep came out on Draw Blank, a label run by two members of Infest.
I ended up with this totally by mistake. I'd ordered records from the label in the past, and never gotten them...duh, yeah Infest records of course. I would continually order records and shirts from these guys, and NEVER get anything back. Must have happened at least 3 times, after seeing adds in MRR. I was a fuckin born sucker for Infest. Finally after writing some pretty pissed off letters to Draw Blank, they sent me this ep, telling me that the Infest record I ordered was out of print. I was pretty bummed out, and prolly listened to this once and filed it away due to my Infest disappointment. Took me a few years to dig this back out to give it another chance under my buddy Ben Barnett's recommendation. Its def not infest but is still a great record.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

I first saw AF in around 1985 in Albany with Youth Of Today, and Albany Style. They were supposed to tour with GBH, but GBH bailed or something. I remember walking into the Washington Ave VFW as they were sound checking to Metallica's Seek & destroy. I was blown away before the band even played the show. They shredded that night with Roger just leaping all over the stage. Another year or two later some German friends I knew and who were staying with me wanted to see AF at the stone, so we all went. The band took the stage, and started with the pledge of allegiance... I was like, ugh... the Germans were getting weirded out as well. Suddenly a bunch of Skins in the front of the stage started seig heiling Roger and the band, it went on for a few mins, about 50 bone headed skins stomping around, goose stepping & acting as though AF were a full blown nazi band. Finally Roger started yelling at some of the skins in the front, telling them that "we are not a fucking nazi band", "I'm fucking Cuban"! I have to give it to him, to have the balls to take on and confront these idiots was cool to hear, I really didn't expect it. The band pounded out some old songs, plus lots from this LP including Iron Cross's "crucified", barely stopping between songs. This LP is my third fav by these guys after victim in pain, and live at cbgbs. This is a classic crossover record. Enjoy, and comment.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Alrighty then...
I'm getting married next Sat in Hawaii, so I've been ripping lots of stuff to throw on the blog so that June won't be such a dead month, and so that assholes like you will keep checking back.
Infernal Heirarchy were from the south in Greensboro North Carolina. One of the last of the death metal bands I was digging on at the time. I think right around this time period in death metal, the death scene had become very commodified, and over all shitty (sort of the way black metal is nowadays). Most stuff became way over produced. You could hear it in the drums, everything became triggered, and just sounded to technically polished. It was a huge turn off, and quickly had me dumping my death metal collection. Part of the appeal to early death metal was its rawness and certain relation it had to hardcore.
These guys though... even in '93 when all that shit was happening kept with the brutalness of their forefathers.
Like I said I dumped my early death stuff in around 1994-95. Started buying some of it back as of late. This one I remember originally ordering through the mail from this dude Ed who did Rage records in Queens NY. The band I was in at the time was a straightedge grindcore band called Monster X. We were all pretty much into the likes of these guys, Brutal Truth, Terrorizer, Morbid Angel, Bolt Thrower, etc. Listening to this ep again, I can hear a riff that directly influenced me in some of my early writing with Monster X. Both the songs on this 7" ep are at least 5 mins long each, so def worthy of downloading. Fuck the triggers!

Don't let the bad album cover fool you...
Pic were from the Netherlands, and were early legendary lords of the nwobhm sound. I believe they formed in around 1979-80. When I think of their sound, I think Maiden meets Dio! Yeah, almost that good man. The band influenced U.S. bands, English bands, heavy metal bands from everywhere. Its unreal to me how these guys have sorta been left out of metal (at least in the U.S. scene).
For me, when I think of Dutch music the first things that come to my mind are L'arm, BGK, Picture, & Golden Earing. This stuff is true, die hard heavy metal with great vox, and melodic heavy sizzling guitars. The drums just play hard and steady.
I was on tour in Europe some years ago with the Oath, and I bought a bunch of Picture stuff at some weird flea market in one of the city centers of Holland. Some of this bands records have always been tough to find in the U.S. Record shopping in Europe is amazing. So much metal, so many metal heads... dudes with lots of hair, bad mustaches, and leather vests buying some of the worst hard rock albums of all time. I love it, Long live metal.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

This one brings back some really positive memories for sure.
Kids for Cash were from Virginia, and had a strong 7 Seconds sound. I don't think the band did anything else after this kinda rare, and obscure ep. The sound really is melodic and posi. If your a metalhead you prolly won't be digging on this one "dude".
I ran into this ep totally by mistake in around 1987. I was home in Albany for Xmas or something from S.F., and had randomly heard a radio show by these two dudes on Siena College radio (88.3 WVCR). They played an entire side of the ep, then went on to inform me, the listener that the ep was, and had been sitting at Worlds records for a while, and that stupid hardcore punks needed to buy it, cos it was good. I borrowed my Moms car, and headed to the record store to see multiple copies of this(like 20). Back then one rarely thought of buying more than one copy of a record...even if it was only $2.75.
Years later I found out the D.J. on the radio that I had randomly heard was one of the singers of Wolfpack, and went on to become an Albany cop. A few more years went on, and he came into my comic book shop, and sold me a shit load of his punk records. I told him I found it humorous that a cop was selling me punk/hardcore records... He started showing me his tats. A Bunch of lazy crusty punks in the store were like "what the fuck is happening"?

Hello my lovely metalheaded friends!
My Buddy Artie picked us up Priest tickets for August, so of course I've been on a massive Judas Priest listening kick lately. I last saw the band on the screaming for vengeance tour with opening act Iron Maiden in the early 80's.
What does all that have to do with Malice you say? Well, Malice were a VERY, very Judas Priest influenced band from Los Angeles, with the vocalist sounding almost exactly like Halford. That being said, I sorta love Malice for just that reason alone. Sure they looked "gay" with all the eye liner, and spandex, and yeah they missed the nwobhm boat by at least 3 years.... The band formed in 1981, and put out another two records that I know of, this one being the debut, & my favorite. Still don't get why it took them 4 years to get this record out.
So as I've been exhausting all my early priest Albums, I busted this one out to see if it still reminded me of JP the way I recall. It does, and it rules!
I ended up with this record through my high school friend, and band mate Mark Szwarcberg. Mark started hating on all the "cheese metal", and had gotten gung ho into the thrash metal type stuff. He gave this one to me telling me that it was a "poser record". He was sorta right... It was, but it still smokes in a early 80s sorta metal way. If you like Savatage, Armored Saint, and of course Judas Priest, chances are you'll get a hard on listening to this one. http://www.mediafire.com/?gzvczmzcjib